Indian IT firms "exploiting employees"

A report claimed that major IT outsources based in India are squeezing their employees to work longer hours, even though the industry is coming out of the recession.

Akanksha Prasad, writing for CIOL News, said that staff had to work longer hours to qualify for overtime and were pushing for more employee utilisation – a euphemism meaning that work efficiency is maximised.

One Kolkata based IT professional, quoted under terms of anonymity, and working for one of the largest companies, alleged that his firm had increased the time its employees worked by half an hour officially but one hour internally.

“If we worked for less than nine hours, then we were penalised. But when we worked for 12-15 hours, we were not given overtime,” he told CIOL News.

TCS, HCL, Accenture, Wipro and Infosys would not be drawn on reports, although some of the companies claimed similar measures had been in place for years.